Helpless

My mother has this tendency to be the most insightful person on earth.

It's annoying.

She will always say the right thing, and frequently I find myself recycling her wisdom on other people. When I tell them where my new-found depth and understanding came from, ("wow, that was incredibly insightful." 'yeah, i got that from my mom,') they always tell me that I'm lucky to have a mother who so astutely connects with life.

And I tell them it's annoying.

When things go wrong for me, I always call her. Always. When I was new to the city, and realized that despite having found my Oz here in New York, I was still sad...her response was, "I hope you didn't expect that poor city to support you on its own. No city is that strong, Jennifer. No one is that strong." Damn her, she was right.

When I told her I was failing at my new job (which she corrects me, "you're flailing Jennifer, we don't fail, we struggle) she indicated to me that I would not be doing poorly if it were something I wanted to do, and that doing poorly was a choice. "You can do anything you want to," she said. "So decide that you'll do it, that you'll do it well, and then look for something to do that will actually make you happy." Right again.

I can't understand where she comes up with this stuff, but the pool of wisdom seems never-ending. I can't manage to get myself into a problem that she can't Yoda me out of. And believe me, I've had a couple of problems.

So now that she's sad, and things aren't going well in her life, I want to be able to help her. I want to be able to bestow upon her, the same kind of insight she's granted me a million times in my life. I want to be able to tell her what's required to fix it and carry on, and I want to make it go away. The problem, however, is two-fold. First of all, divorce makes even the most adult of children feel like they're five years old. I'm powerless to help them, because I am their child, and children can't help anyone, including themselves. So, realizing that my "help" would only wind up causing her to have to help ME, I decided only to weigh in as infrequently as possible, and provoked only by conversation initiated by one of my two parents. And when I do try to assess one of their present complications with any insight, it turns out only to be her insight, recycled upon its originator. Foiled again. I can't help anyone.

The second part of the problem, is that the child in me is dying to scream at them, tell them they're being ridiculous and they have to stay together. That I know they still love each other and that they always will. The wisdom in me, provided by said knower-of-all-things, realizes that sometimes the more uncomfortable choice, is the better one. That yes, you could remain, whatever remaining may mean in your situation, but that growth and progression would be squashed by the complacency of that decision. That what keeps you there, may be the very things you should abandon. I know these things, and so when the child in me cries, the adult in me wipes my eyes and leaves the hard decisions up to them.

There isn't a damn thing I can say to her that she hasn't already realized on her own. She's far more progressed emotionally than I am, and has more understanding of the sacrifices and decisions that are associated with this divorce. She has her life to reflect on, and her own lessons to learn. I hate knowing that I can't help her. But I think the insight that she's given me, might help me to help myself.